NBA commissioner bans Clippers owner Donald Sterling for life

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NBA Commissioner Adam Silver holds a press conference to discuss Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling at the Hilton Hotel on April 29, 2014 in New York City. Silver announced that Sterling will be banned from the NBA for life and will be fined $2.5 million for racist comments released in audio recordings.

NEW YORK — Issuing about the strongest rebuke that he could,
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver banned Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling
for life Tuesday for making racist comments in a recorded conversation, the
first step toward forcing a sale of the club and permanently removing Sterling
from the league.

Silver also fined Sterling $2.5 million, and again expressed
outrage.

“I fully expect to get the support I need from the other NBA
owners to remove him,” Silver said.

Several owners immediately chimed in with support of Silver’s
decision. Sterling, the league’s longest-tenured owner and someone with an
estimated net worth of about $2 billion, did not offer any immediate comment.

The penalties, which were announced only three days after the
scandal broke, are the harshest ever issued by the league and among the stiffest
punishments ever given to an owner in professional sports. Silver said a league
investigation found that Sterling was in fact the person on the audiotapes that
were released over the weekend and immediately sent shock waves throughout the
game.

“We stand together in condemning Mr. Sterling’s views,” Silver
said. “They simply have no place in the NBA.”

Sterling acknowledged he was the man on the tape, Silver said.

Sterling still owns the team, but going forward he is immediately
barred from attending any NBA games or practices, being present at any Clippers
office or facility, participating in any business or player personnel decisions
involving the team, or being part of any league business.

It’s unclear how Sterling will respond.

“This league is far bigger than any one owner, any one coach and
any one player,” said Silver, who as commissioner has broad powers under what’s
typically called the “best interest of the game” clause of the NBA constitution.

But Silver works for the owners, and he will need 75 percent of
them — if all 30 teams vote, he’ll need 23 on his side — to force Sterling out
of the league completely.

The fine will be donated to organizations dedicated to
anti-discrimination and tolerance efforts that will be jointly selected by the
NBA and the Players Association, Silver said.

“This has all happened in three days, and so I am hopeful there
will be no long-term damage to the league and to the Clippers organization,”
Silver said. “But as I said earlier, I’m outraged so I certainly understand
other people’s outrage. This will take some time and appropriate healing will be
necessary.”

After the announcement, the Clippers’ website had a simple
message: “We are one,” it read.

“We wholeheartedly support and embrace the decision by the NBA
and Commissioner Adam Silver today. Now the healing process begins,” the
Clippers added in a statement.

Sterling’s comments were released over the weekend by TMZ and
Deadspin, and numerous NBA owners and players have condemned them. Even
President Barack Obama weighed in on the crisis, the first of Silver’s brief
tenure as commissioner.

“Commissioner Silver thank you for protecting our beautiful and
powerful league!! Great leader!!,” Miami Heat star LeBron James wrote on
Twitter.

The league’s investigation started Saturday and players
immediately began expressing intense displeasure with the situation, even going
so far as to ask Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson to get involved on behalf of the
players’ union.

“When one rotten apple does something, or if you see cancer,
you’ve got to cut it out really quickly,” Kevin Johnson said at a news
conference in Los Angeles, flanked by NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and players
like Steve Nash, Tyson Chandler, Luke Walton and Roger Mason Jr., among others.
“And Commissioner Silver did that in real time. We’re so proud and thankful for
him.”

The sanctions came a few hours before the Clippers were to play
Golden State in Game 5 of a tied-up Western Conference first-round playoff
series.

“When you get this many Lakers to stand up for the Clippers, you
know something big is happening in L.A.,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said.
“We are a single team here today, a team not only speaking out for what we’re
against — racism, hatred, bigotry, intolerance — but what we’re for. We’re for
great basketball.”

Before Silver took the podium, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban
tweeted out a photo of the NBA Constitution, saying “It exists for a reason.”

Several sponsors either terminated or suspended their business
dealings with the team on Monday, though individual deals that some of those
companies have with Clippers stars like Chris Paul and Blake Griffin will
continue and were not affected. Still, it was a clear statement that companies,
like just about everyone inside the league, were outraged.

“Commissioner Silver showed great leadership in banning LA
Clippers owner Donald Sterling for life,” Magic Johnson, who was referenced on
the taped conversation involving Sterling, tweeted shortly after the league’s
decision was announced.

Johnson’s role on the tape stemmed from Sterling’s female
companion apparently posting a photo of her and the Hall of Fame player on her
Instagram account. That photo has since been deleted, but raised Sterling’s ire
nonetheless.

“It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re
associating with black people. Do you have to?” Sterling asks the woman on the
tape.

The issues raised when the tapes were released over the weekend
represent just another chapter in Sterling’s long history of being at the center
of controversy.

In the past, he’s faced extensive federal charges of civil rights
violations and racial discrimination in his business dealings, and some of his
race-related statements would be described as shocking.

He has also been sued in the past for sexual harassment by former
employees, and even the woman who goes by the name “V. Stiviano” — purportedly
the female voice on the tapes at the center of this scandal — describes Sterling
in court documents as a man “with a big toothy grin brandishing his sexual
prowess in the faces of the Paparazzi and caring less what anyone else thought,
the least of which, his own wife.”

Stiviano is being sued by Rochelle Sterling, who is seeking to
reclaim at least $1.8 million in cash and gifts that her husband allegedly
provided the woman.

Silver said when he first heard the audio, he hoped it had been
altered or was fake — but also said that from his 20-year relationship with
Sterling, he suspected the voice was his.

“This has been a painful moment,” Silver said, “for all members
of the NBA family.”

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